Pennsylvania state senators are paid for the rental of their district offices.
This senator's wife (and then the senator himself after their
divorce) owned 50% of the company that owned the building where he had his district office, until the
company was sold in 2008.

At first blush, it might not seem a problem for an official to rent
an office from himself, as long as he is paying the going rate. But
what is the going rate? And might the space not have been rented at
all if the official didn't rent it to himself? Since these questions
are hard to answer, it is best that an official not rent to himself.

Would it be reasonable to seek an advisory opinion on such a rental?
If it's that important to rent from oneself, that suggests one of
two things: either that the market is so tight, there are no
comparable spaces in the area; or the market is so bad, the official
really needs the income. In either case, it might be acceptable if
the official agrees to a rental rate substantially lower than the
market rate.

The second issue involves the Pennsylvania statute of limitations.
At five years, it appears to be very generous. But the ethics
violation ended in 2008, and was not discovered, presumably, until
2011. That means that the first six years of the senator's ongoing
violation are outside the ethics commission's jurisdiction. That
makes no sense.

It also makes no sense to start a statute of
limitations for an ethics violation with the date of commission. It
should start with the date it was discovered by the ethics
commission. When an official has special obligations, a statute of limitations should limit how long the ethics commission has to
bring the case. It should not reward an official for successfully
hiding a violation, or for using his office to intimidate others into not reporting his misconduct.

Third, the ethics commission fined the senator only for the time
after he took over the interest in the building from his wife. It
should make no difference which member of a couple has an ownership
interest. Renting from one's spouse is no different from renting
from oneself. The money still goes into the same household.